TEFAP Alliance Blog

Foodlinks America - February 20, 2006

In this issue:

· Cuts Slated for Nutrition Programs in 2007 Budget
· WIC Breastfeeding Analyzed
· Funding Shifts Cause Dislocations
· School Food News and Notes
· TEFAP Funding Levels Summarized
· Obesity Round-Up
· Reports from the Field
· Small Bites

Foodlinks America is published 24 times a year by California Emergency Foodlink and distributed by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 6412 CR 116, Burnet, Texas 78611; Zy Weinberg and Barbara Vauthier, Editors; email: bvauthier@281.com.

There is no copyright on Foodlinks America, so the information can be freely shared with colleagues and friends, though attribution for reprinted articles is appreciated. To receive the newsletter directly, contact Barbara Vauthier at: bvauthier@281.com.

Cuts Slated for Nutrition Programs in 2007 Budget

President George Bush unveiled his fiscal year 2007 budget on February 6, 2005 and, included among many proposed cuts in human needs programs, are the complete elimination of one nutrition program and the reduction of several others.

The President’s budget would end the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which currently operates in 32 states, the District of Columbia, and two Indian reservations and provides over 500,000 seniors, women and children with a monthly box of food. The regular food package of canned tuna, peanut butter, cheese, cereal, canned fruits and vegetables, and other items, is an important dietary supplement for 459,000 low-income seniors, more than a third of whom are over 75, and thousands of low-income women and children not in WIC. Low-income seniors in rural areas or with limited access to grocery stores would be the most adversely affected.

The Administration’s rationale for eliminating the CSFP is that it overlaps with two larger nutrition assistance programs – food stamps and WIC. However, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. points out, “There is no evidence available about the extent to which seniors already participate in both food stamps and CSFP and whether either program, or the combination, is essential to maintaining low-income seniors’ foods security.” Due to funding cuts this year, the CSFP is already in the process of reducing its caseload by nearly ten percent.

Proposed policy changes that would reduce funding for the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and the WIC Program were also part of the budget package. Low-income working families that receive cash assistance in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program under a state policy option would be barred from the FSP, cutting off some 300,000 people. Proposed funding for nutrition and administrative services under WIC in the fiscal 2007 budget is limited and would be insufficient to handle the expected caseload, according to WIC advocates. In addition, a cap on automatic or “adjunctive eligibility” for low-income families on Medicaid would affect WIC services in half a dozen states.

The President’s budget plan would also reduce funding for congregate and home-delivered meal services for the elderly by several million dollars a year, in spite of growing need among that segment of the population. Funding for the Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP), funded at $7.2 million in fiscal year 2005, would again be zeroed out in the fiscal 2007 budget.

In one positive note to the budget, the Administration proposes to increase food stamp spending by allowing individuals and families to retain retirement savings that would not count against program asset limits.

Reaction to the President’s request was cool even among Republicans. “We will continue to work for deficit reduction that will not burden farmers,” said Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, “particularly after the high fuel costs and extreme weather of the 2005 crop year, and without harming the mutually-beneficial relationship between farmers and food stamp families.” Chambliss noted that, “Congress did not pass last year’s 2006 budget proposals. The 2007 budget proposals are very similar, and once again unfairly target agriculture. I expect Congress to reject them again.”

WIC Breastfeeding Analyzed

Though breastfeeding is less common among women and children in the WIC Program than in the general population, rates for both “fell short of most national goals, but rates were substantially lower for WIC infants,” according to a February 8, 2006 report from the General Accounting Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress.

Nearly half of all infants in the U.S. participate in the WIC Program and infant formula marketing that targets non-WIC mothers also reaches WIC moms, the report stated, possibly affecting breastfeeding rates. In an examination of current health practices, GAO noted that “giving free formula samples to mothers at hospital discharge found lower breastfeeding rates among both WIC and non-WIC mothers.”

The GAO reported that breastfeeding both in and out of WIC was most common among mothers who were over 20 years old, college graduates, and married. Conversely, women least likely to breastfeed were under 20, not college-educated, and unmarried. Among ethnic groups, Hispanic infants were most likely to be breastfed, African Americans least likely.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), who requested the report, commented that the findings were not surprising, “given the challenges [low-income women] face when they return to the workplace. We can and must do more to make it easier, especially for low-income mothers, to breastfeed,” Harkin said.

However, the notion that WIC mothers can easily breastfeed is “sort of an elitist concept,” said Geraldine Henchy of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C. “Many of them are employed in jobs where they barely get bathroom breaks. They’re not going to be able to pump. They’re not going to be able to breastfeed.”

To see the GAO report, go to: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-282.

Funding Shifts Cause Dislocations

The Emergency Food and Shelter (EFS) program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been a mainstay of local efforts to address hunger and homelessness for more than 20 years. But recent funding cuts, combined with revised allocation formulas within states, have left some communities scrambling to replace lost federal dollars.

FEMA relies on a national board comprised of the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, United Jewish Communities, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the Salvation Army, and the United Way of America to divvy up the funds to states each year via a set formula based on local unemployment and poverty statistics. The formula is updated annually. At the community level, Local Boards with membership similar to the national board, make decisions on which local organizations to fund to provide relief for low-income individuals and families in the way of emergency meals, food boxes, utility payments, and rent or mortgage assistance.

For fiscal year 2006, EFS was affected by the one percent across-the-board cut in discretionary programs contained in the final budget bill. Overall funding for the program was reduced from $153 million in fiscal year 2005 to $151.5 million this year. Both national and in-state allocation formulas were updated using new unemployment data. Although the total reduction was small, implementing such changes at the local level can cause significant dislocations.

One example is in Western North Carolina where Cabarrus County was dropped from the EFS funding rolls this year, after the state’s allocation was cut by some $600,000. To receive EFS funding in fiscal 2006, a county must have an unemployment rate above 6.3 percent and a poverty level over 11 percent. Cabarrus County’s unemployment rate, significantly affected by the closing of a textile plant in 2003, changed when displaced workers’ unemployment benefits ran out and they were no longer added to federal unemployment statistics.

As a result, $136,000 in EFS monies that supported local faith-based groups, meals on wheels, and the Salvation Army have disappeared. “It’s a big loss,” said Ann Davis, director of Cabarrus Meals on Wheels. “It’s never a guarantee (to get the funding), but it was certainly a shock to receive that phone call,” saying there won’t be any.

School Food News and Notes

· Wellness policies promote good nutrition: The 2004 reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act gave advocates new hope for better nutrition policies at school: By July 1 of this year, every school that participates in the school lunch or breakfast program – and that is the vast majority of schools in the U.S. – must have a local wellness policy in place. The policy requirement was designed to address the childhood obesity problem and mandates schools to set nutrition standards for foods sold at school, including those in vending machines, a la carte lines, and in school stores. A few schools are reportedly even tackling the thorny issue of “competitive foods.”

· More choices, higher selection rate: A recent study by University of Texas researchers found that more children will choose low- and moderate-fat entrees in the cafeteria line if fewer high-fat options are offered. An article in the February 200 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reported that, “Increasing the availability of low- and moderate-fat entrees is not sufficient to increase their rate of selection. However, their rate of selection is increased as the availability of high-fat entree choices is reduced.”
The number of days that a low-fat entree was offered at a test school increased by 70 percent in the first phase of the study, with no increase in the rate of selection of the low- or moderate-fat entrees. However, in phase two, both low- and moderate-fat entrees were selected at a higher rate in the test school (32.1 percent and 26.4 percent, respectively) than at the control school (13.8 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively). To learn more, go to: http://www.adajournal.org/article/PIIS0002822305019036/abstract.

· Whole Milk Out of New York City Schools: The nation’s largest school district has banned whole milk. Over the protest of the diary industry, New York City’s school food service has eliminated whole milk as an option and will offer only one percent and skim milk. The new policy adopted because of whole milk’s reported link to obesity, will affect nearly 1.1 million children who attend public school in the city. So far, city officials have reported no drop in meal participation due to the change. Chocolate skim milk is still on the school menu, however.

TEFAP Funding Levels Summarized

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided detailed figures on funds available on a state-by-state basis under The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) for fiscal year 2006. FNS has published a spread sheet for “Administrative Funds and Commodity Allocations Combined” that includes information on commodity food amounts available to convert to administrative funds this year as well as numbers on administrative funds recovered from prior fiscal years.

Overall, FNS noted that $187,996,779 is available for TEFAP in the current fiscal year. For additional information, view the spread sheet at: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/tefap/FY06_AdminCommodityCombined.xls.

Obesity Round-up

· Obesity not tightly tied to food insecurity: New research has shown that food insecurity may not be as strong a factor in childhood obesity as previously thought. Researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans analyzed a nationally representative sample to determine that although, 11.2 percent of kindergarten girls and 11.8 percent of boys were overweight, “Children from food-insecure households were 20 percent less likely to be overweight than their food-secure counterparts.”

The study concluded that: “There are strong arguments for reducing food insecurity among households with young children. This research suggests that these arguments would be based on reasons other than a potential link to obesity. Low activity levels and excessive television watching, however, were strongly related to overweight status, a finding that supports continued efforts to intervene in these areas.”

For further information, see: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/2/464.

· Low fat, no difference: The largest studies ever undertaken to examine the effects of a low-fat diet found that such a regimen had no effect on cancer or heart disease rates. The efforts, reported in the February 8, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, involved some 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were tracked for eight years as part of the Women’s Health Initiative of the National Institutes of Health. Those assigned to a low-fat diet group had virtually the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks, and strokes as women who ate whatever they wanted.

“These studies are revolutionary,” said Dr. Jules Hirsch, a diet expert at Rockefeller University in New York City. “They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy.” Others agreed. Dr. Barbara Howard of the MedStar Research Institute in Hyattsville, MD noted that diet alone does not determine health. “We are not going to reverse any of the chronic diseases in this country by changing the composition of the diet. People are always thinking it’s what they ate. They are not looking at how much they ate or that they smoke or that they are sedentary.”

To access the studies, go to: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/vol295/issue6/index.dtl.
Reports from the Field
· Like so many communities around the nation, Kingston, NY, in the Mid-Hudson Valley, is struggling to meet the food needs of low-income families. An article on local anti-hunger efforts in the January 22, 2006 Daily Freeman newspaper provided details of the need and response:
High heating and gasoline prices, coupled with rising housing costs, mean more and more of your friends and neighbors may be going hungry.
And emergency food providers across the Mid-Hudson Valley say they’re trying to do more with less because of a decline in charitable giving, rising food costs and a decrease in government funding,
“We hear a lot of stories about the fuel problem, and that folks just can’t afford to pay their bills and also keep themselves fed,” said Jill Dunn, associate director of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. “I also think there’s a problem with the cost of housing, which is really getting worse. The lack of affordable housing is killing people. They’re having a hard time just finding affordable housing, much less putting food on the table.”
“The cost of everything has gotten hard to manage,” she said.
Roughly four out of every 100 New Yorkers were going hungry regularly, skipping meals or eating too little, and sometimes not eating for an entire day.
Local food providers say the need continues to rise. Groups in which the need is growing the most rapidly are senior citizens, children and families in which at least one adult is working.
“It’s not the ne’er-do-wells,” said Victoria Langling, chairman of the Ulster County Food Pantry Consortium, a group of food providers and soup kitchens in the county. “It’s people facing a choice: Do I go ahead and buy the medicine I need, or do I buy the food to take the medicine with? People are having to make hard choices, and it’s not fair.”
Countywide, Langling said, the need for emergency food services is on the rise. She said not only are high heating and gas prices taxing local residents out of their grocery money, but that money is not stretching as far as it used to because increased transportation costs have driven up the retail prices on food and other household needs.
“It is a perfect storm,” she said.
At the People’s Place, a food pantry and thrift store in Midtown Kingston, Director Peter Quinlan said the number of new families coming in last year was more than 20 percent higher than in 2004.
He said 547 families came to The People’s Place for the first time in 2005, compared to 453 first-timers in 2004.
“We average 435 families a month in our food pantry, so there’s a lot of people who need food and partake of our service,” Quinlan said.
The increase in demand and the decrease in resources means some providers are simply unable to meet the need.
Dunn, at the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, said the standard distribution from a food pantry is three meals a day for three days, and providers that used to be able to meet that standard are finding they have to give less to each family as their own resources dwindle.
“I’ve heard from pantry coordinators lately that they can’t even give … what has become the industry standard,” Dunn said. “They feel as though they can’t even meet that need. The numbers are increasing, and of course the funding lately has decreased. It’s a real problem, and the need is not being met.”
But in general, providers say that without either an easing of need or a boost in funding, they don’t know how they’ll continue to feed a community that they know is going hungry.
“It’s kind of frustrating when you can’t quite put your arms around a solution,” Dunn said. “What we’re doing right now, it seems like, is putting a Band-Aid on it.”
· Communities around the nation are facing hardship from the proposed demise of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). The following was reported in the Daily Texan newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin in its February 16, 2006 edition:
“We’ve been distributing about $51 per person worth of food to 7,750 seniors in our area every month,” said Colleen Brinkmann of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas. “Seniors really count on this food. They don’t look at this food as charity, because they have paid taxes their whole life and really count on this to live.”
Although the CSFP only operates at two sites in Texas (Dallas and Laredo), “Food banks across the nation are panicked,” said Eric Cooper, executive director of the San Antonio Food Bank, one of the charities not impacted. “We have a program that gets food boxes to seniors, but our hope is that one day CSFP will be able to complement our food boxes. Our food box is the best that we can deliver, but the CSFP food boxes are phenomenal.”
“The challenge to protecting this program is, because it only exists in 32 states and two Texas cities, the Legislature doesn’t think it affects them individually,” said Cooper. “Many seniors that we rub shoulders with live on $300 a month from Social Security. They are just trying to live until they die, and if you take away a food box from a vulnerable population, they don’t have much to live for.”
Small Bites

Cost is ten times what you get: It takes about 10 fossil fuel calories to produce and transport each food calorie in the average American diet; so if your daily food intake is 2,000 calories, then it took 20,000 calories to grow that food and get it to you.

Heat versus eat: U.S. consumers use more than three times as much energy to obtain their food as to fuel their homes.

Morning energy: Producing a two-pound box of breakfast cereal requires the equivalent of burning half a gallon of gasoline.

Making meat: It takes 68 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of pork, and 35 calories of fuel to make one calorie of beef.

All wet: The U.S. is the world’s leading consumer of bottled water, drinking 26 billion liters in 2004. The next thirstiest countries were Mexico, China, Brazil, Italy, and Germany.

The high cost of water: At a cost of $2.50 per liter, or about $10 per gallon, bottled water is more expensive than gasoline in some parts of the world.

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